Högskolan i Skövde

his.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • apa-cv
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Species-rich ecosystems are vulnerable to cascading extinctions in an increasingly variable world
Division of Theoretical Biology, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Division of Theoretical Biology, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
University of Skövde, School of Life Sciences. University of Skövde, The Systems Biology Research Centre. Division of Theoretical Biology, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6122-6167
Division of Theoretical Biology, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Show others and affiliations
2012 (English)In: Ecology and Evolution, E-ISSN 2045-7758, Vol. 2, no 4, p. 858-874Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Global warming leads to increased intensity and frequency of weather extremes. Such increased environmental variability might in turn result in increased variation in the demographic rates of interacting species with potentially important consequences for the dynamics of food webs. Using a theoretical approach, we here explore the response of food webs to a highly variable environment.We investigate how species richness and correlation in the responses of species to environmental fluctuations affect the risk of extinction cascades. We find that the risk of extinction cascades increases with increasing species richness, especially when correlation among species is low. Initial extinctions of primary producer species unleash bottom-up extinction cascades, especially in webs with specialist consumers. In this sense, species-rich ecosystems are less robust to increasing levels of environmental variability than species-poor ones. Our study thus suggests that highly speciesrich ecosystems such as coral reefs and tropical rainforests might be particularly vulnerable to increased climate variability.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Vol. 2, no 4, p. 858-874
Keywords [en]
Biodiversity, climate change, ecological networks, environmental variability, extinction cascades, food web, species interactions, stability, stochastic models, weather extremes
National Category
Ecology Climate Research
Research subject
Natural sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:his:diva-5920DOI: 10.1002/ece3.218ISI: 000312444000015PubMedID: 22837831Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84888028315OAI: oai:DiVA.org:his-5920DiVA, id: diva2:530721
Available from: 2012-06-04 Created: 2012-06-04 Last updated: 2024-01-17Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textPubMedScopus

Authority records

Berg, SofiaJonsson, TomasSetzer, Malin

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Berg, SofiaJonsson, TomasSetzer, Malin
By organisation
School of Life SciencesThe Systems Biology Research Centre
In the same journal
Ecology and Evolution
EcologyClimate Research

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
pubmed
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
pubmed
urn-nbn
Total: 991 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • apa-cv
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf